Homeschooling--Socialization

A view of the reeds surrounding our pond

What about "socialization"?

Just what is meant by that word? I have often wondered this as I have fielded (and even asked) this question over the past 28 years.

It was 28 years ago that I was first introduced to the idea of keeping one's children home to educate them. My dearest friend and mentor announced that she was going to begin to homeschool her children, and I was flabbergasted! In my mind I had a picture of little children huddled together in the dark, afraid of their own shadows (or was it two shabbily-dressed little girls, each sporting huge, dirty, black-rimmed glasses embellished with small pieces of white tape?).

You see, I was brought up under a substantial amount of "socialization" myself. Much of it was simple courtesy and politeness; don't point, don't stare, say please and thank you, don't make a nuisance of yourself, etc. (I don't think very many people today receive this type of training at all--our large family has been pointed and stared at without the slightest consideration for common courtesy, and then there are those who attempt to make us a spectacle, even though we really try and live a quiet life). Each and every child should be taught how to handle himself in social situations; how to meet and greet people, be courteous, how to answer the phone respectfully, and how to strike up a civil conversation, etc.

A breath of fresh air

But I am afraid the rest of my "socialization" was more about conformity than anything else. After all, my parents were children of the 50's--mid-century, "modern thinkers". I have studied this for a long while, and I am convinced that by the middle of the 20th Century, the Progressive movement was in full bloom and bearing fruit, and that, even though there were multitudes of "church-going" people, our frame of reference as a nation had already shifted from Christianity to humanism (that is, with a "man-centered" orientation and understanding of how life and the world was supposed to work together vs. the traditional Biblical, God-centered world-view).

Of course, Judeo-Christian ethics were still such a weighty influence that the effects of humanism were not immediately felt or even readily evident (although the rumblings of an inevitable societal earthquake were beginning in the form of beatnik poets, social pariahs, liberal folk singers, and the like).

People, and especially children, were supposed to be "good citizens". They were expected to believe what the doctors, teachers, and other officials told them. Concurrently, a new "youth culture" had erupted and developed rapidly after WWI. "Teens", as they were newly named, were supposed to have habits, mannerisms, even a subjective and transitory code of ethics, which could justify their rebellious actions and which were in direct opposition the tenets of their parents. At the same time, public classrooms were increasingly becoming arms for societal engineers which were striving for a secular government utopia, other entities were vying for control in order to gain power to construct kingdoms of monetary wealth.

A walk together to the nature park

The age-segregated classroom was the vehicle that made all of this maneuvering possible.

I never realized there had been anything but age-segregated classrooms until my grandmother described the education of her youth. She had grown up in a rural area in Missouri and did not enter school until the age of eight, after her mother had already taught her to read.

She then attended a one-room schoolhouse, filled with boys and girls of all ages and strata within that close community. She described to me how the older children were taught to take care of the smaller children--they helped the younger ones wash before the noon meal, and bundle up before heading out into the cold, etc. The older children were also told they were in a position of great responsibility, since the smaller children were supposed to respect and look up to them. Sessions were short and sweet; instead of being a "social club", the schoolhouse was a place for young people to prepare for adult life. Responsibility and living by one's principles, even if it meant standing alone, was emphasized.

If you want to train a dog to become attached to his human master, you do not raise him with his siblings. Instead of becoming dependent on human beings, the puppies of the same age by being raised together will depend on each other, in the same way they would naturally if they were part of a pack.

Ellie in discovery mode

This is the same idea behind age-cloistering. Children are born with a natural need to be attached to their parents, their families, and their family's circle of friends, along with the normal exchange of other people from varying trades and walks of life. Taking them away from the natural and positive influence of their families and placing them into peer groups forces them to rely on each other, and of course we know that this is like the blind-leading the blind.

No matter. When youngsters realize their need for some guidance and wisdom, society will provide it for them in the form of teachers, counselors and youth group leaders. Never, never parents--in order to achieve the utopian dreams of the progressive secularists, traditional families must continually be discredited and undermined so that individuals become increasingly dependent upon the government, or whatever social machine is deemed necessary to achieve their desired end (they keep insisting that "it takes a village"--since when?).

Is this sounding a bit conspiratorial? It would be, except for the fact that this mindset is too pervasive to be contributed to any certain group; even "Evangelicals" are many times found complicit to one degree or another.

I don't look at the whole thing as being a conspiracy, just the inevitable winding down of human culture in preparation for the final days as prophetically described in the Bible. 

God's Holy Word!

And this is the crux of the matter.

Sin is nothing more than choosing anything else but God and His ways as described in the Holy Scriptures. It's just that simple.

Sin is destructive, and it is relentlessly so. It has been said there is pleasure in sin for a season, but that season is so short, and the harvest of rebellion is so very enduring! Darwin may have written his "Descent of Man" as a rebellious answer to his father's religion, but would he have thought better of it if he had slept in the filth of a Nazi concentration camp, with the smoke of the cremation ovens wafting through his window?

If you believe the Bible, and if you are convinced that God has given your children to you as a precious trust, then you are not allowed to live a "normal" life as defined by our current culture. To do so would be to deny the faith. Society today is every bit as corrupt as that of pagan Rome, or Greece and more correctly resembles that of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Children, more than "friends", more than "counselors", more than "interaction", need parents. They need their families. They are not able from the age of three to discern what is best for them. That is why God gave children to a mother and a father; to be sheltered and instructed to keep them from the harm others would do them, either intentionally or otherwise.

Yes, children need to be taught how to get along with others, but that is why God created brothers and sisters. There is no better place to learn "conflict resolution" than when two siblings are quibbling over the last drumstick!

The beauty of God's creation

Yes, children need to appreciate that there are differences between people, but wouldn't it be better if a child was not taught to look at these differences at all, but to see folks just as people created in God's image, no matter what the pigment of their skin might be?

Public schools, and other education systems modeled after them, automatically teach children to categorize other human beings; some are slow, some are brilliant. Some are poor and have to eat the free lunch, others are affluent and go to McDonald's every day. Some kids have cars, others can't even afford a bus pass. There are all sorts of clicks and sub-groups some even declaring themselves "free-thinkers" because they dye their hair black or tattoo and pierce their bodies, others try and disappear into the background, not wanting to draw any attention to themselves at all, still others make themselves look ridiculous by trying to become what we used to call "popular", even if it means doing things that threaten their futures through experimentation with the occult, drugs, alcohol, and s*x. 

God help and forgive us all! More damage has been done to the young and innocent in the name of "socialization" in the past 125 years than in the whole history of the earth. We have convinced a whole new generation of parents that they are somehow abusing their own children if they do not allow them to be pulled from their arms and herded like little animals before they are even potty-trained. From the youngest ages children are being taught to see themselves in terms of a collective, not as individuals who will one day stand alone before God to give an account.

A much appreciated lift on the way home!

Instead of being loved as the precious gifts and responsibility of two loving parents, young people think of themselves as cogs in a huge, vacuous machine; expendable, temporary and disposable. So we help them keep the noise and activities churning; anything to keep us all from stopping to take a closer look at what the logical results of such an existence will actually mean.

There is no "question" at all in my mind about the popular and politically correct idea of socialization--I want no part of it!

I want to raise children who are loved, who are secure in that love so that they can love others.

I don't care whether or not my children make thousands of acquaintances in their lifetimes, rather, I want them to know what being an intimate friend truly means.

I want for them to have the life-skills to live out a marriage relationship, through the good and the bad, even when it does not feel good or isn't "fun".

I want my children to be so solid in what they believe that they will be able to stand, no matter how out of favor it may seem to others.

My children will enjoy learning for its own merit; not to impress anyone else, nor do I want them to be afraid to rise to excellence in any part of their lives with a false sense of guilt over making others look "bad" (see C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and the discussion on what it means to be "democratic").

Home Sweet Home!

When my children make decisions, they will not base them on what "others might think"--they will only be concerned with what God thinks. 

No, they will not look, act or think as others do at their prospective ages. Their fondest memories will be of home. Their best friends will be among their family circle, and most certainly among those who are living surrendered lives for Jesus. They will be a little more serious, perhaps more contemplative and thoughtful of others... 

...as the best people in this life usually are.